How are the skill ranges/cooldowns on the pets/mounts? Is it worth spending 4x the tokens for a high end one instead of getting a mid-tier? Which tier is the most optimal?

Many thanks

Always advice spider, yellow one

This is what all my clannies use, poison damage instant cast skill is good for locks, and dex/attack boosts add quite a bit of extra attack. As to tier, I'm a cheapskate, so I'm always gonna choose the lowest or second-lowest, but it really depends on your eventual target level and your budget. If the character is only going to level only to 180-190ish, the higher tiers become much more affordable.

I personally took the spider as the dex bonus provides good attack. I also think that top the top tier spider is worth the extra cost compared to a lower tier spider. For mounts I chose a horse over bear as it provides str and dex as opposed to vit. I don't really use the damage skill on my horse and have only chosen the lowest tier as I do not think there is as much difference between the top and bottom as there is with the spiders.

Really depends what you want to accomplish with your ranger. If lock battles are your thing/necessary then spider is a good choice. If you like survivabikith and don't need to lock, chicken is also a good option.

I got a silver chicken for my tank warrior and here's why: dex boosts my defense by 360, and at only 300 some ability , and it's healing 297 per tick, 3 ticks per cast. I find it more useful/will be more useful than bunny. I do have a lvl 5 tier 2 boar I wasn't using too. Each tick can crit heal as well. Between the chicken and new foods, being an add tank on gele doesn't require druid support.

As a ranger, even though you have access to light heal, chicken frees up those skill points to put elsewhere, and still gives you dex to use towards skills, defense and some attack, and you get straight attack from it.

To me, like I said, it really depends on how you're gonna use your ranger.

Mounts: horse is cool, however it's skill requires you to be closer for some reason, unlike wolf which allows you to be at a longer range. I got a horse on my ranger, mostly because it does add str/dex, hoping they fix the ranged skill though.

Would it be better to invest bounty tokens in a mount first or a pet? I would think the mount, as pet food gets expensive, but want to know your thoughts!

In my opinion, buying a mount first is better, not only because of the expense of food, but because of the provided speed boost too.

When it comes to buying a mount, there are two ways to do things. You could either buy a mount to boost something that your ranger is already strong in, or you could use it to make up for a weaker area. This could mean buying a wolf or horse to either help increase your damage even if it is already high, or it could slightly help you try and even out your damage to your better areas if you cannot deal much damage.

My ranger has quite a lot of vitality and dexterity, so my auto damage suffers, but instead of buying a wolf to counter that, I bought a bear instead, as the "Resilience" skill helps me stay in a fight for longer. It all depends on your ranger's stats and skills (and items), and it's up to you whether you want to enhance strong skills or complement them.

Mount 100% the wolf over horse. Wolf does ranged pierceand horse has to be mele range to cast. Its fine when your leveling (unless you bolas) but makes the skill entirely useless at raids.

As for pet, i recommend wolf or spider. Dont recommend chicken unless you really need the extra heals. Wolf and spider are bothgreat for leveling and also at eg. The wolf dot used to be an issue at eg but many have traded in wolf for dragons, chickens or spiders. My ranger on arawn has lvl 6 red wolf and has almost full control of the dot. My ranger on epona has a spider, mostly just because i have never had or used spider pet before. I love the wolf, i love the spider. You really cant go wrong with either.

I've seen this question before and the responses were similar. Unfortunately long term eg players forget that not everyone is fortunate to have a legacy mount and give answers assuming you have one.So the first question should always be, do you have a legacy mount or do you have enough gold to comfortably buy a legacy mount? If the answer is yes, then get a pet first.If the answer is no, assuming you don't want to slow walk everywhere until you're able to get a mount, then get a mount first.You've already had good answers to which pet or mount would be best.When it comes to fights, pets are a bit better then mounts. Hence the initial replies suggesting spiders. But, where players can't afford a legacy mount, most will sacrifice the pets slight advantage for the convenience of movement speed.As for me, I have the wolf mount.

Edit: just noticed who is asking the question. Surely you've been playing the game long enough to know these answers? Seeing your liking for statistical analysis of game dynamics I'm surprised you're not able to tell us precisely how each pet and mount stacks up.